The Other Side
by ChinamiMorimoto
Summary: The end of your life isn't the end you your existence.  What happened to Jack F***ing Twist after he crossed over?  Companion story to Post Mortem.  A prolog of sorts.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is a companion story to my other BBM fanfic Post Mortom. Reading that one first is by no means necessary, but it would make this one make a whole lot more sense. If you've already read Post Mortom, enjoy the side of the story Suzann can't very well tell.**

Garden-Earth date October, 1983 CE

Jack had broken down by the side of the road; the old truck had finally given out. A few of local guys who were passing by stopped and volunteered to help, but...

Jack felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, c'mon man."

The voice was unfamiliar and young and seemed awfully far away. Everything seemed far away. Far away and too damn still.

Jack felt like he was in a daze within a dream. He saw his loyal, old, green truck, hood up, one tire flat, and he saw – what _was_ that? It looked like a person. It looked like _him_, but it couldn't be. Could it? If he was here, then he couldn't be over there, right? Besides, he wasn't... Was he?

"Hey." The hand on Jack's shoulder shook him; the unfamiliar young voice was gentle, has it had been before, but there was an edge of insistence to it. "C'mon."

Jack turned away from the confusing and rather disturbing scene before him to look at the person speaking to him. It was a young man, not long out of high school, assuming he had graduated. He had long-ish strawberry-blond hair so wavy it was almost curly. His dark green eyes were serious and intense, but gentle and concerned, foreboding yet reassuring. He was wearing a dark grey shirt tucked into black slacks held up by a chain belt of brushed nickle, silvery-grey work boots and a black vest. A brushed nickle badge in the shape of an hourglass was pinned to his vest over his heart. A thin loop of braided pewter wire rested in his coppery hair.

"You need to come with me; you shouldn't stat here."

Jack nodded. It was true, he shouldn't stay here; he needed to get help, call Lureen...

The young man took his hand from Jack's shoulder, and Jack noticed he was wearing a silver ring set with a shard of black glass. He took hold of Jack's wrist and tugged him away from the truck and lifeless human form thereby.

Jack took a single step and the world fell away to a white hot, searing, frigid blackness.

**A/N: Yes, it's short, but there's more to come, I promise.**

**If you have no effing clue what's going on, don't worry, neither does Jack. If you have some idea to a pretty good idea of what's going on, you're mighty observant. If you freaking _know_ what's going on, you're mighty observant, quite familiar with both the cannon and Post Mortom, and good at doing a fair bit more than just putting two and two together.**

**If you're in that last group, or you think you are, drop a comment, let me know, 'cause you're amazing. Even if you don't fit that description, drop a comment to let me know what you think!**

**Happy fanficing!**


	2. Chapter 2

Jack felt solid ground beneath his feet again and the searing, freezing darkness faded. His knees buckled under him.

A couple sets of strong hands caught him and set him in a nearby chair.

The owners of the hands stepped back and Jack's eyes slowly came to focus on them.

One was the red-haired young man, the other was a woman of about the same age with a pale blonde braid down her back. They were talking quickly in some language Jack didn't recognize, yet, somehow, he found he could understand them.

"Hey, Lucas, how's he?"

The red-haired man, boy really, shook his head. "Not great, he wasn't ready, not ready at all, no idea what hit him, never saw it coming."

"Counselor?"

"Yeah. I got to get back."

"Of course."

The red-head, Lucas, nodded then walked away. The blonde knelt down by Jack's chair. "Hey," she said gently, having switched to English "Can you come with me?"

Jack closed his eyes; his head was reeling and throbbing painfully. "I dunno."

The blonde woman made a sympathetic little sound and patted his shoulder. After a moment, she grabbed his elbow and pulled him gently but forcefully to his feet. "Come on." She towed him out of the large, busy room they had been in and led him down a cool, quiet hallway then into a small, comfortable room. All the furniture was white. So were the walls, ceiling and floor. The hallway and other room had been white too.

A younger, dark-haired woman dressed exactly like the blonde in a gray sweater-vest over a white shirt and black pants came in and the two women exchanged a few quiet words as Jack sank into a chair, still dizzy. The blonde left and the other woman sat across from Jack. "Hey, you okay?"

"'m not sure."

"Ah, uhhuh. My name's Miranda. What's yours?"

"Jack. Jack Twist."

"Is that your given name?"

"Naw."

"What is your given name?"

"Johnathan Twist Junior."

Miranda scribbled something on a pad of paper that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. "So, Jack, do you know where you are?"

He shook his head. "No idea."

"Do you know where you were?"

"Texas. My truck broke down. These guys pulled over to help me, then..." He looked down, trying to remember, and noticed he was wearing all white. "When did I change clothes?"

Miranda bit her lip, trying not to smile. "When you came here."

There was a moment of silence – then Jack remembered. A series of lurid images flashed across his brain. He doubled over, trying not to retch. "Shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit."

Miranda leaned forward and rubbed Jack's shoulder comfortingly. "It's okay."

"No it's not." He looked up at her, eyes wide, clearly slipping into hysterics. "I'm dead, I'm fuckin' dead. They killed me."

"Yes, you're dead, but it's not the end, okay? You're here now."

"Where is _here_?"

"The Kingdom of Heaven."

He slumped back in his chair, pressing a hand to his forehead. "I shouldn't be here."

"You mean you shouldn't be dead or you shouldn't be here specifically?"

"Neither!" He half jumped out of his chair, then sunk into it again. "But I shouldn't be _here_."

"How come?" She crossed her legs, reminding him very much of the counselor at his middle school whom he'd been forced to talk to after releasing all of his science teacher's lab rats.

"I've, I've done stuff."

"It doesn't matter, Jack. You've got a clean slate here."

"Okay, alright, alright."

"Do you have any close family here, someone you could stay with? Your parents, maybe?"

"They ain't here yet."

"Okay. Anybody else?"

He shook his head.

"Alright then. There are a couple of dormitories for people who've just come here and haven't anywhere to stay. You can stay there for a while, it won't be long, and we'll find you you a more permanent residence. That work?"

Jack nodded. Of course it worked, it wasn't as if he had a better idea.

"Good. There anything you like to do, that you're accustomed to, that you'd like to be able to do here?"

Jack laughed; it was a rather mirthless sound. "I'm a farm boy, I'm accustomed to farm work, and I do like it, but I don't think there are many farms or ranches 'round here."

Miranda smiled gently. "No, there aren't, but we'll find you something. C'mon, lets get you moved into the dorms."

It took roughly an hour to get Jack a room in the dorms and to get everything settled about his being a citizen of the Kingdom."

Miranda handed a sheaf of paper to a runner, a black-clad boy in his early teens, and turned to Jack. "There you go, all set. Any immediate questions before I go?"

Jack nodded. "If I'm, well," he found it hard to say he was dead. "If I'm here, does that make me–?"

"An Angel? Yes, you're an Angel, I'm an Angel, everyone here is an Angel."

"Okay." Jack tried to run a hand through his hair, but found his hand stymied by something made of wire in his hair. "What the?"

"Your halo." Miranda took off her own and spun it around her finger. "We've all got them."

Jack uncertainly took his halo off and looked at it. Where Miranda's, the blonde woman's, and Lucas's halos were braided pewter, Jack's was copper, two wires, one thinner than the other, twisted together in a seamless loop.

"It won't ever fall off, but you can take it off if you want to."

Jack nodded again. "Um,–?"

"Wings?"

"Yeah."

"Again, we all have them. When they're folded, they disappear. Give yourself a couple days, you'll become aware of them."

"Alright. And do I have to dress like this?" He picked at the sleeve of his white shirt.

"Once you're out of the dorms you can dress however you like."

"Good."

Miranda smiled and stood. She gave Jack one last pat on the shoulder, "I'll come come talk to you again in a couple days," and left.

Jack sat for a moment, then got up to go find the room that was now his. He lay on the bed, with white sheets, of course, and stared at the white ceiling, just breathing and trying to shut out the thoughts of "I'm dead, they killed me, I'm dead, I died" and keep himself from dissolving into hysterics.

After he didn't know how long, Jack went over to the small mirror hanging on the wall and was surprised to find that he looked like he had in his twenties, just before his rodeo career had washed up. He looked tired, but, other than that, he looked better than he probably ever had. He looked at his hands. No scars from the many mishaps he'd had over the years. He rolled up his left sleeve Nothing from where he'd been bit by a dog as a boy. He took off his shirt. Falls, fights, accidents, nicks, cuts, skins. No sign was left that they'd ever happened.

Jack leaned against the wall, pressing his bare back against the plaster. He closed his eyes.

_A clean slate,_ he thought, _guess it's time to start over._

**A/N: Well, this chapter has been written since the day after the first one was posted, I just never buckled down to type it until the single person who regularly reviews anything of mine was like "next chapter, please?" I need a push sometimes.**

**We're some thirty-odd years before the events of Post Mortom here, so it may take a while to catch up, but it'll happen, I think...**

**Randomly, this was originally written while listening to Japanese rap music and typed while listening to German rap music and I hate English rap music. Go figure.**

**Uh next chapter will be posted... before the apocalypse, I promise.**


	3. Chapter 3

Jack spent three weeks in the dorms. Three weeks that could only be described as hellish. The other people in the dorms all seemed to be one of of crazy or another.

Finally, on Tuesday of the fourth week, Miranda came to find him, bearing the news that the owners of a farm and ranch establishment on the edge of town had volunteered to take him in.

He was sitting in the commons of the dorm when a woman with short, dark, curly hair and wearing a pale green dress walked up to him. She smiled softly. "Hey, are you Jack Twist?"

He looked up. "Yeah."

She held out a hand. "I'm Kirsten Magnell, your new neighbor slash landlady."

Jack stood and shook her hand. "Well, nice to meet you, Kirsten. I sure do appreciate—"

"It's no trouble. You need a place to stay and we've got the room."

"Well, thank you."

She clapped him on the shoulder. "C'mon, let's get you home."

As they walked through the city, Kirsten alternately explained things and asked Jack about himself, gently avoiding the topic of his death. "So, guessing you're from Texas."

"Wyoming, actually, but I lived in Texas."

"Ah, well, that explains the accent."

"Yeah. Are you... from here?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm from Yorkshire, but I got here when I was so young, I hardly remember."

"Oh, well..."

"Don't say you're sorry."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "Everybody does."

"Guess that makes sense then." He saw a group of five people near a fountain, all either on horseback or standing with horse's reins in hand. They were all in uniform, white and pale gold. "Are they police?"

"Sort of. They're mounted Guard. The Guard is like the police, FBI, CIA, customs, immigration control, homeland security, and at least six other things, all in one. You get used to it."

Way on the edge of town, they walked down a winding private road lined with trees. At the end of the drive, it opened up into an empty, grassy field surrounded by a mortared split rail fence. Over to the right there were some disused buildings and overgrown pasture, but to the left there was a neat little light blue house and fields full of near-grown pumpkins. A ways off, on the other side of the pasture, were a couple of small rice fields and a yellow cottage.

Kirsten started off toward the blue house, talking as she went. "I figure we can fix up that over there for you." She gestured toward the buildings by the pasture. "But until then, you can stay with us." She stepped up onto the porch of her house and leaned against a post.

Jack stepped up next to her and motioned across tot he house by the rice fields. "Who lives there?"

"Teiah Grover. She's a bit quirky but she's nice. She moved here a couple years ago."

Jack nodded.

A man with spiky golden hair stepped out of the house. "Hey, Jack?"

Jack nodded.

"I'm David."

"Nice to meet you."

A few days later, Jack was fairly well settled into he Magnell's guest bedroom and he and David were working on making the unused house on the west side of the property fit for human habitation.

David chucked a half-rotten floorboard out of the nearest glassless window onto the growing pile outside. "Yeah, I'm from here. Well, not out here, here. Born in the city. Grew up next to Hua Mulan."

Jack paused in pulling some old drywall down. "Who?"

"Hua Mulan." David was tearing up another board. "Chinese woman. Joined the military disguised as a man so her father wouldn't go get his ass kicked."

"Well, I guess that's a good reason."

"Ha, yeah. So you, you're a Wyoming farm boy."

"That I am."

David punched him lightly in the arm with a gloved hand. "Fucking cowboy."

They laughed.

There was a soft rap in the door-frame and both men turned to see Teiah, her short strawberry blonde hair sticking up crazily, standing in the doorway holding a brown paper bag. "Hey, guys, I have sandwiches." She tossed the bag to David, who caught it.

Jack and David thanked her, ate, and returned to work.

By January, work had finished and Jack moved in to the house on the west side of the property.

"You know, Jack," Kirsten said one evening as the four of them ate dinner together. "You have a stable and all, and you're a pretty good horseman, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"Why don't you start a riding school?"

The other three people at the table gave her blank looks.

She shrugged. "It would give you something to do."

"Well," Jack said. "That's not such a bad idea..."

**A/N: Oh gawd I haven't posted in a long time, I'm so sorry about that. I'm doing all I can but I am so busy. I know this was a mess when I first put it up but I think it's all fixed now. -sigh-**


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